


Tell me what it's like to conquer.

by ok_but_first_tea



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms
Genre: F/M, More Fighting, burning boats, couples fighting, light angst?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-24
Updated: 2019-03-24
Packaged: 2019-12-06 19:10:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18224258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ok_but_first_tea/pseuds/ok_but_first_tea
Summary: “Of course I love them!” Fëanáro said.“Do you?” Nerdanel, usually so lively, now held still like one of her sculptures. “Do you love the way they burn themselves from inside, too? Do you love the way Tyelco feels like he’s not enough because he’s not smart like you?”





	Tell me what it's like to conquer.

**Author's Note:**

> I !!!! love Nerdanel!!!!!! BAMF!Nerdanel is canon Nerdanel and you can't change my mind!!
> 
> Shout out to Sofia and Kit, elf hell recruiters extraordinaire. I have feelings about trash elves and it's your fault and I love you. Gosh, I really hope I got all their names right, there are So Many names!!!! 
> 
> Title is from a poem by madzie-bane on tumblr "Golden child, lion boy; Tell me what it's like to conquer."  
> http://madzieloss.tumblr.com/post/158322325236/golden-child-lion-boy-tell-me-what-its-like

 

“Do you even love them?” Nerdanel spit the words. Her red hair sprung weightlessly around her face, dancing round her shoulders as she spoke. She was beautiful and like gasoline on flames, that only encouraged his fury.

“Of course I love them!” Fëanáro said.

“Do you?” Nerdanel, usually so lively, now held still like one of her sculptures. “Do you love the way they burn themselves from inside, too? Do you love the way Tyelco feels like he’s not _enough_ because he’s not smart like you?”

And now it was Fëanáro’s turn to keep still. To not breathe, not move. To wait until she would stop.

Nerdanel did not stop talking.

“Or maybe how our Maitimo can’t love the one he does because he’s afraid of your judgement? Do you love that too?” She huffed, blowing a strand of hair out of her face. “Maybe you would love that.”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.” Fëanáro said. His voice was heavy and kings-like, but despite his tone of authority in these figh- in these _conversations_ , he felt utterly lost. “I would love any girl Nelyo brought home.”

It was evidently not the right answer.  
Nerdanels face scrunched up in a way that Fëanáro did not fully understand. He’d never been good at expressions, but he did know this was not positive.

“Of _course_ you would, and isn’t that the problem?”

Fëanáro frowned. “You speak in riddles, love. If you have a problem, let us face it together. Let us _talk._ ”

“My problem,” Nerdanel yelled, “Is that you don’t even look at these children! But oh, how they love you. They adore you! And for what?” Her voice broke when she continued but she did not stop, “I barely recognize the man I married in you. Do you know how it is to love someone, and realize that the children you bore together are nothing but puppets for politics to them? To wake every morning- I.. those awful dreams.. Do you understand how it feels to look at your lover only to see that wretched cruelty has eaten their heart- their _love_?"

And it was petty. Oh, it was petty. But he looked at his wife, raw and shouting, the woman who refused to give their youngest a name, and instead called their harmless children rotten for things they’d had no chance to disprove yet. It was so deceptively easy to let the words fall of his tongue.

“Yes.” he said, and watched her realize. “I think I do.” And he watched her face crumble.

The following silence hang heavy between them. Even so, Fëanáro did not dare open his mouth to break it, not this time. Though she turned away, rubbing dried clay of her fingers and ignoring him for the moment, his wife was not yet done talking.

Her face was tense.

“Sometimes..” She began, and she knew she would regret saying it but she had not become Fëanáro’s wife because all of her good choices. “Sometimes I wish I could wipe the you out of them. The way they act, and copy you. I wish I could take those parts from them and give it to the everlasting darkness, for we all know that’s where they should be.”  
Fëanáro swallowed thickly, but it did not help against the clump in his throat, nor against the burning behind his eyes.  
“I have been nothing but good for these children!” He said. “Your visions are no proof, I would never-”  
“And yet, I wish it all the same!” She shouted back. “I think, they would be better of without those parts of you. Perhaps your talent would not fuel them, but would they not be happier that way?”

They looked at each other for a long time. Neither of them daring to back down, but neither of them daring to continue either.

Eventually, Fëanáro surrendered.

“I’ll be in my study.” He said. There was no answer, and he didn’t wait for one before he turned and walked away.

It wasn’t the first conversation they’d had like this, and it wouldn’t be the last. Fëanáro blamed the dreams that had plagued his wife lately. Those of fire, and grief.

But something like that would never happen. They were what they were; dreams.

He would never do something like that, would he?

 

* * *

 

It was almost ironic, for how much Ambarto was her least favorite, he was the most like her.

Fëanáro sometimes wondered, in the uttermost privacy of his mind, if Nerdanel had really succeeded in wiping Fëanáro from one of their children, as she claimed to wish.

Ambarto had her courage, and her laugh. He wore her eyes, the unrelenting fire in her soul, and her fiery red hair with grace.

Even Ambarto himself knew, even with his sword held high, speaking an oath that he would loathe till his death, that “Fëanáro and Fëanáro’s kin” might as well not include him.

Fëanáro refused to know, but he knew, when the ships went up in flames, the red fire went up in air. His wife had refused to come along, and he would not take even parts of her with him.  
Even as he heard the yelling, the pained shouts in his son’s voice, he watched that fire that looked just like her. He did not smile, but he did not cry either.

This had been her choice, and how could it have been his fault if it was her choice.

 _Leave them all._ He thought, and gripped his sword tighter. He would show them all.

He would be worth it.

He’d be worth all of it.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> aaaaaaaaaaaahhhh <\- working title of fic, but Also my current state of Emotion. I feel like Feanor would really really like the word fuck, and have used it several times in this situation. Let Feanor say Fuck!!
> 
> Thank you for reading <3


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